Discarded - California

DISCARDED | PAGE 1

DISCARDED COMMUNITIES ON THE FRONTLINES

OF THE GLOBAL PLASTIC CRISIS APRIL 2019

CONTENTS 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Key Findings

6 CHAPTER 1 THE FLOOD

9 CHAPTER 2 CHINA SAYS NO TO ldquoFOREIGN GARBAGErdquo

11 CHAPTER 3 RECYCLING IS NOT ENOUGH Existential Problems Within the Recycling Industry

rarr The Curse of ldquoAspirational Recyclingrdquo rarr Recycling vs Garbage rarr Drowning in Plastic rarr The Fallout

14 CHAPTER 4 MALAYSIA

rarr Plastic Scrap Floods Malaysia ldquoYou Ask People to Die While You Go to Heaven and We Go to Hellrdquo

rarr Grassroots Action ldquoWe Had to Do It Ourselvesrdquo rarr Enforcement ldquoA Heavy Burdenrdquo rarr Intentions and Challenges rarr Malaysia Takes Action

22 CHAPTER 5 THAILAND rarr ldquoItrsquos Toxic Trash and We are Living Hererdquo

26 CHAPTER 6 INDONESIA

rarr Treasure in the Trash rarr Confict in the Village rarr ldquoPlease Tell the United Nationsrdquo rarr A Cautionary Tale ldquoI Just Couldnrsquot Take it Any Morerdquo rarr Why Indonesia May Become the Next China rarr The Recycling King of Bangun rarr End of the Line Plastic Fuel rarr Karawang Danger of the Unregulated Industry

Spreading

36 CHAPTER 7 FOLLOWING IN CHINArsquoS FOOTSTEPS rarr New Destinations Begin Imposing Bans rarr Beyond Southeast Asia

38 CHAPTER 8 TURNING CRISIS INTO OPPORTUNITY rarr The Future of Zero Waste ldquoRejecting Throwaway

Culturerdquo

40 RECOMMENDATIONS

41 END NOTES

45 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ON THE COVER Villagers pick through plastic waste that was found contaminating imported paper for recycling Sumengko Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 21st February 2019 Photo Credit Adam Dean

DISCARDED | PAGE 2

Plastic discarded by paper recycling factories piles up in Bangun East Java Indonesia Ecoton a GAIA partner organization in East Java estimates that as much as 60ndash70 percent of the paper imported for recycling is contaminated with plastic waste Photo courtesy of Fully HandokoEcoton

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY When China took action to protect its borders from foreign plastic pollution by effectively shutting its doors to plastic waste imports in the beginning of 2018 it threw the global plastic recycling industry into chaos

Wealthy countries had grown accustomed to exporting their plastic problems with little thought or effort to ensure that the plastic they were exporting got recycled and did not harm other countries North Americans and Europeans exported not just their plastic waste but the pollution that went with getting rid of it

Last year China enacted a new policy called National Sword for economic and environmental reasons including pollution from importing and processing plastic waste

By refusing to be the worldrsquos dumping ground Chinarsquos policymdashand the fallout that resulted from itmdashrevealed the true cost of rampant consumption plastic production and the problems and limitations of recycling as a solution to a world sufocating in its own plastic

Plastic wastemdashand the environmental and health problems it causesmdashwas diverted to other shores stressing infrastructure and amplifying the problems of plastic pollution in lower-income countries awash in the trash of wealthy nations

This report continues GAIArsquos research on the effects of Chinarsquos National Sword policy and the broader implications of plastic pollution as the world attempts to adjust to a new landscape of global plastic recycling As the crisis deepens this report focuses on three countries in Southeast Asia and particularly the stories of people

DISCARDED | PAGE 3

on the ground who have been thrust to the frontlines of the worldrsquos plastic problem

After the ban came into effect Malaysia took in more imported waste than any other nation1 Thailand had the largest percentage increase in plastic waste imports of any country in the world at over 1000 percent2 Indonesiarsquos imports increased at the end of 2018 as Malaysia and Thailand began imposing their own restrictions

Through the stories of the people dealing with plastic imports in their communities this report uncovers the complex human dimensions of a global trade in turmoil from grassroots organizations rising up against plastic pollution to the challenges that lower-income country governments face in implementing new bans patterned after Chinarsquos National Sword the crime threats corruption that govern the waste trade and the persistent economic incentives that allow for its proliferation

The dangers faced by people working in the waste trade underline the ultimate truth about plastic waste recycling is not enough

The global plastic waste trade puts people and communities at risk has long-term impacts on health and the environment and enables the continued production of new plastics and its unchecked consumption

It is treated as a solution to plastic waste but in reality a scant 9 percent of the plastic the world has produced since 1950 has been recycled3

As countries historically dependent on exporting plastic collected for recycling now move to improve domestic plastic recycling infrastructure it is becoming abundantly clear that recycling alone will not be sufficient to absorb the ever-increasing amounts of single-use no-value plastic being produced and placed on store shelves This means that efforts to transform plastic recycling should be complemented by a large-scale transformation of production and consumption of plastic

As plastic waste exports continue at somewhat declining rates more countries are now in the crosshairs People in receiving countries are angered by the uptick in trash burning illegal disposal and unregulated recycling

operations that have transformed whole villages into dumping grounds almost overnight

The Malaysian government after taking a stance of restricting plastic waste imports is shouldering the burden of enforcement They receive no tax revenue from the illegal plastic recycling operators but are the ones left with the cost of the clean-up enforcement and monitoring instead of the industries and countries most responsible for the problem in the first place In Indonesia a burgeoning waste trade is engulfing entire villages in plastic and sparking conflict

In Thailand one farmer living down a dirt road from a plastic waste factory had a message for North Americans ldquoYou are selfishrdquo

Plastic pollution had made her ill and her water undrinkable ldquoDonrsquot push the trash out of your country Itrsquos your trash and you know itrsquos toxicrdquo she said ldquoWhy do you dump your trash in Thailandrdquo

A waste picker burns imported plastic discarded from a paper recycling factory in Bangun East Java Indonesia The plastic comes in bales of imported paper for recycling Photo courtesy of Fully HandokoEcoton

DISCARDED | PAGE 4

KWilkins
Highlight

KEY FINDINGS

bull Global plastic trade and waste flows continue to be in flux over a year after China instituted its new recyclables import policy After China shut its borders imports primarily from the United States and Europe were diverted to Southeast Asia primarily Malaysia as well as Thailand Vietnam and Taiwan

bull The impacts of the shift in plastic trade to Southeast Asian countries has been staggeringmdashcontaminated water supplies crop death respiratory illness from exposure to burning plastic and the rise of organized crime abound in areas most exposed to the flood of new imports These countries and their people are shouldering the economic social and environmental costs of that pollution possibly for generations to come

Imported plastic waste discarded from paper recycling plants piles up in villages

bull Thanks to strong grassroots movements fighting back against the plastic recycling tradersquos immediate impacts on health the environment and citizensrsquo well-being some of these new national destinations for recycling exports have followed Chinarsquos lead to institute bans and restrictions on plastic scrap imports After a dip following crackdowns in Malaysia Thailand and Taiwan imports have begun rising again in the last quarter of 2018 suggesting challenges in enforcing respective country bans Yet the patchwork nature of individual country bans means the trade can move to other countries restarting the cycle of imports impacts and bans Many governments struggle to adopt and enforce effective policies for reasons such as lack of personnel information or the involvement of criminal syndicates and corruption The global plastic recycling market remains a dirty polluting business in many ways and needs a major overhaul

bull Despite well-meaning efforts to recycle consumers

and municipal waste managers do not know where their recycling is going or if it is being recycled at all These transparency issues and lack of an international regime governing the trade in plastic waste is leaving waste pickers at the bottom of the ladder to deal with the environmental pollution and health risks of consumers on the other side of the world

bull The sheer amount of plastic collected for recycling without having China to ship to is causing a big problem for exporting countries Recyclables are being dumped in landfills incinerated or are piling up in ports with nowhere to go Markets for plastic scrap are drying up and costs of recycling for towns and cities are skyrocketing Poor communities are being subjected to worse pollution from incinerators

bull More governments are passing regulations to reduce single-use plastic as it becomes abundantly clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of plastic pollution In the transition away from single-use plastic through government regulation and other means plastic recycling will have an important but limited role

in Bangun East Java Indonesia Photo courtesy of Fully HandokoEcoton

DISCARDED | PAGE 5

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CHAPTER 1THE FLOOD

Imported plastic is seen discarded after an illegal recycling factory was shut down by government authorities in Kuala Langat Malaysia 24th January 2019 Photo courtesy of Adam Dean

For the people of Jenjarom a provincial town near the western coast of Malaysia the last months of 2017 seemed like a time of promise Chinese businessmen flush with cash were flooding into the town paying local landowners triple the market price for unproductive plots of land far into the fields At night the businessmen crowded into Kuala Langatrsquos open-air restaurants sitting in rickety plastic chairs ordering platters of food and drinking beer into the night

ldquoEveryone was so happyrdquo said Tan Ching Hin a former village chief for Jenjarom He was excited to see economic investment coming into their small town When he asked the Chinese businessmen what they were doing they answered obliquely they were in the environment business

It didnrsquot take long for the people of Jenjarom to find out what that meant By February 2018 plumes of smoke were rising in the horizon The breeze carried the unmistakable smell of burning plastic The fires would burn through the night People woke up gasping and coughing in the choking acrid air Children and the elderly complained of itchy red skin rashes

Madam Chan a dumpling seller said the pollution became the talk of the town She heard one farmerrsquos prawns had all died crops wilted in the fields of others She and her friends worried that this new ldquoenvironment businessrdquo was poisonous They were scared to die or worse ldquoIf you donrsquot dierdquo she said ldquoit goes on and on and you have to go to the doctor and pay moneyrdquo

A year ago North Sumengko in East Java Indonesia was a village of maize and rice fields Today there are piles of plastic waste heaped into mounds two meters high in the middle of the road collecting in slopes and valleys of front-yard scrap shops scattered along the roadsides or smoldering in sprawling makeshift dumps among banana trees and soot-covered bamboo stands

Picking through the heaps of plastic scrap has become a communal cottage industry Men and women shaded under woven conical hats crouch around the rim of a hill of shredded plastic scrap They sift through the strips of plastic pulling out the last bits of recyclable material empty St Ives lotion bottles crushed cans of Michelob Ultra or Arizona Sweet Tea Some damp Gatorade labels cling to dingy clear plastic bottles They separate thick

A villager in Sumengko Village in East Java Indonesia shows foreign currency from the US UK and New Zealand that was found in plastic contamination of paper imported by a paper recycling company 22nd February 2019

aluminum from thin and toss them into buckets to be picked up by the scrap haulers

The trash that canrsquot be recycled is gathered into a wheelbarrow and dumped into their backyards

A few times a week a moneychanger on a motorcycle rides up to the waste pickers to exchange any foreign currency they find like treasure in the imported trash Itrsquos a catalog of the countries sending plastic scrap to rural Indonesia there are dollar bills from the United States Canada and Australia riyals from Saudi Arabia Korean won and Russian rubles Most of all there are euros

Places like this are at the end of the line of a multibillion-dollar global recycling industry that starts in the household and industrial waste bins of developed countries like the United States and Germany It ends in the yards of waste pickers like the ones in North Sumengko Indonesia who are left to deal with the problem that wealthy countries have failed to solvemdashhow to get rid of the heaps of unrecyclable dirty plastic waste generated by modern consumption For the most part they do whatrsquos easiest they burn it Itrsquos also the most harmful to their health and the environment

DISCARDED | PAGE 7

Lily binti Kamalrsquos house is now in the shadow of a plastic recycling factory in Telok Gong Malaysia She grew up there and said that when she was a child their house was surrounded by forests The air was fresh and smelled of leaves and flowers She used to fish in the creeks There are no flowers now and the water is too polluted for her children to fish in or even go outside there are too many trucks from the plastic recycling factories rumbling through the neighborhood Their roads are littered with flakes of plastic

Lily Kamal looked down listlessly at her young daughter scooting her bike across three meters of floor in their living room ldquoI donrsquot want them hererdquo she said of the plastic recycling factories proliferating in Telok Gong

In the village of Kok Hua Khao in the agricultural province of Chacheongsao in Thailand Phayao Charoonwong 51 draws water from her well It is cloudy and leaves the bucket with a coppery-red tinge It smells unmistakably of trash Shersquos a potato farmer and has lived in the house and drank from her well for more than 20 years

When a local organization tested Charoonwongrsquos water it registered dangerous levels of heavy metals zinc iron manganese and lead

Since the small recycling operation 100 meters from her house expanded overnight in the beginning of 2018 the water has become undrinkable The dozen or so Cambodian laborers were replaced with a hundred Chinese workers and what used to be one or two trucks coming every couple of days turned into ten lorries a day In the daytime they stripped wiring for copper and at night they burned the plastic Charoonwong says there was no way to escape the burning acrid smell it permeated her house and on the worst nights made her vomit Shersquos losing weight every month She canrsquot afford to go to the doctor so she doesnrsquot know what it is but in the last year since the plastic trash started coming in she has dropped four and a half kilos

ldquoThe people donrsquot have much money We live off the earth Now we canrsquot drink the water We canrsquot eat from the landrdquo Charoonwong said Charoonwong and other villagers have protested the factory more than half a

DISCARDED | PAGE 8

dozen times since the beginning of 2018 The factory has shut down a couple of times but after a few weeks they reopen again

In the yard there were piles of broken plastic a jagged jigsaw puzzle of modern American life car radios convection ovens table saws routers doorknobs remote controls a FastTrack from the California tollway system and a Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner The label on a cracked shell of an IBM computer read ldquoProduced in the USArdquo There were tangled mountains of computer adapters and cell phone chargers all with flat two-pronged American plugs

Charoonwong had a message for the Americans ldquoYou are selfishrdquo

ldquoDonrsquot push the trash out of your country Itrsquos your trash and you know itrsquos toxicrdquo Charoonwong said ldquoWhy do you dump your trash in Thailandrdquo

Plastic waste at the Bantar Gabang waste dump thought to be the largest in the world in Bantar Gabang Indonesia on 23rd January 2019

CHAPTER 2 CHINA SAYS NO TO ldquoFOREIGN GARBAGErdquo

Imported plastic dumped after an illegal recycling factory was recently shut down by government authorities in Kuala Langat Malaysia on 23rd January 2019 Photo courtesy of Adam Dean

On January 1 2018 China began enforcing a new policy to protect its borders from foreign pollution Exporting countries had long relied on China as a main destination for their low-grade recyclables and this bold new policy threw the global recycling industry into crisis

Called ldquoNational Swordrdquo the policy banned the import of 24 kinds of waste including various plastics4 and enforced quality standards that exporting countries found nearly impossible to comply with5 This move drastically reduced imports of plastic scrap into China From 2017 to 2018 Chinarsquos imports of plastic waste dropped 991 percent6 According to Greenpeace East Asiarsquos analysis Global plastic waste exports dropped by close to 50 by the end of 2018 in comparison with 2016 levels7

For decades China was the center of the global plastic waste trade absorbing the pollution and filth of plastic imports and processing in exchange for the recycled material to feed its manufacturing industry China shipped its manufactured goods to the United States

and Europe and the cargo ships would come back with plastic scrap North Americans and Europeans exported not just their waste but also the pollution that went with getting rid of it For wealthy nationsmdash consuming and disposing at a faster rate than ever beforemdash it was the perfect loop

Low shipping and labor costs allowed plastic recycling exports to be profitable and low or poorly-implemented local environmental standards for imports made it that much easier and cheaper for towns and cities in wealthy countries to unload their plastic waste into China

While billed as an environmentally friendly alternative to landfill disposal the global recycling trade can be a dirty business In China whole villages were engulfed in plastic and the contaminants associated with itmdashfrom non-recyclable trash to the harmful chemicals leached by certain plastics when processed by the informal sector An army of waste pickers and their families lived among the piles of foreign trash on the frontlines of the worldrsquos rapidly-expanding plastic pollution problem

DISCARDED | PAGE 9

TOP IMPORTERS AND EXPORTERS January - November 2018

UK

Germany JapanBelgium

USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia

ˇˇ ˇ 913165 tons ˇˇ˘ 471724 tons

˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons

Data courtesy of Greenpeace East Asia data visualization courtesy of Sarah Fitzgerald

Plastic waste by the ton was buried in landfills heaped into open dumps incinerated or burned in the open

The human and environmental toll came into sharp focus in a documentary in 2016 called ldquoPlastic Chinardquo by filmmaker Jiu-Liang Wang ldquoPlastic Chinardquo turned the worldrsquos attention to the heart-wrenching story of an 11-year-old girl living and working among imported scrap plastic in the Chinese countryside exposing the social and environmental cost of the plastic scrap industry

The documentary is credited with prompting a reckoning in China of what it meant to be the worldrsquos dump at a time when Chinese domestic consumption was producing larger quantities of its own recyclable material

In July 2017 the Chinese government filed notice with the World Trade Organization that it would no longer accept ldquoforeign garbagerdquo with some translations of the document noting that the government referred to the trash as ldquoloathsomerdquo

In 2016 Chinese processors imported 51 percent of the worldrsquos recycling much of it from the United States and Europe But China no longer wanted to pay the environmental price for the worldrsquos rampant cycle of

consumption and disposal Among the recyclable paper and plastics are oily pizza boxes plastic-coated paper coffee cups plastic bags chips containers cereal boxes and candy wrappersmdashunrecyclable garbage that processors who buy recyclable scrap are now left to deal with

The recycling industry braced themselves for the seismic change in the market flows of plastic scrap The industry and infrastructure in China was so vast some didnrsquot believe China would go through with the ban Meanwhile Chinese plastic scrap-processing businesses fanned out into Southeast Asia and elsewhere scouting new countriesmdashwith amenable import policies and lax environmental standardsmdashwhere they could set up operations

On December 31 2017 China indeed followed through with the ban Scrap began piling up in towns and cities in the United States and Europe Others diverted to Southeast Asia As developed nations reeled from the effects of Chinarsquos banmdashthe lack of buyers and plummeting market prices for recyclablesmdashand scrambled to adjust to the new regime the new ports of call for global plastic scrap began to be subjected to the same burdens that led China to close its doors

DISCARDED | PAGE 10

CHAPTER 3 RECYCLING IESXIS

NTENT

OIAT

L E PR

NOB

OUGLEMS

HWITHIN THE RECYCLING INDUSTRY

Processing site for imported plastic that was dumped there by a nearby paper recycling company whose imported paper was contaminated with plastic in Bangun Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 22nd February 2019 Photo courtesy of Adam Dean

THE CURSE OF ldquoASPIRATIONAL RECYCLINGrdquo

While Chinarsquos implementation of the National Sword policy banning plastic waste seemed abrupt to a world accustomed to shipping its trash to China the conditions that prompted the policy had been festering for years

North American and European households are notorious among plastic recyclers for practicing what those in the trade call ldquoaspirational recyclingrdquo8 throwing all sorts of plastic packaging soiled paper broken toys plastic grocery bags dirty to-go food containers used diapers and other trash into the recycling bin in hopes that because it made it into the bin someone down the line will find a way to recycle it In practice aspirational recycling contaminates the recyclables Plastic recyclers sort out the valuable recyclables from the trash as best they can and send the lower-grade recyclables (often significantly contaminated with trash) for export In this way the responsibility of getting rid of the contaminated waste is punted further down the global chain until it lands in the

backyards of the worldrsquos poorest waste pickers Because China previously accepted recycling contaminated with plastic waste and other non-recyclables and absorbed the negative effects exporting countries sent their recycling overseas without knowing or caring whether it was recycled or not what the environmental and health impacts were or who was bearing the brunt of these effects What mattered was that whatever they managed to export counted toward their recycling rates

RECYCLING VS GARBAGE

In addition to the contamination issue the bales of mixed plastic ldquorecyclablesrdquo North Americans and Europeans were shipping to China were low-quality low-value and hard to recycle due to varieties in plastic resin types use of colorants additives and fillers in plastic production and the complexity of products and packaging which are made of one or more types of polymers or combined with other materials9

DISCARDED | PAGE 11

Plastic is labeled with a number from 1ndash7 according to Resin Identification Codes (RIC) The strongest recycling markets are for those numbered 1 and 2 and to a lesser extent number 5 Number 1 is polyethylene terephthalate or PET things like clear plastic water bottles or color-sorted plastic soda bottles High-density polyethylene or HDPE is stamped with the number 2 and includes milk jugs detergent and oil bottles Number 5 plastic is polypropylene or PP a tough lightweight plastic used to make things like buckets the plastic liners inside cereal boxes yogurt containers and plastic bottle tops The rest of the plastic more difficult and expensive to sort and process in the United States is frequently exported to other countries often in mixed bales of numbers 3 4 6 and 7 plastics These plastics some of which are known to contain toxic additives are some of what China previously accepted indiscriminately and are now likely to end up in countries like Malaysia Indonesia and Thailand

Number 3 plastic polyvinyl chloride or PVC is used to make toys cooking oil bottles clear plastic wrapping and a myriad of other household goods and is known for leaching phthalates lead and other toxic additives Number 4 plastic low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is used to make things like plastic grocery bags squeezable bottles and some clothing Number 6 plastic polystyrene is lightweight spongy and structurally weakmdashit breaks up into pieces and scatters into the environment Itrsquos known to leach styrene a possible carcinogen and other chemicals associated with reproductive system disruption Number 7 is a category of plastic that serves as a catchall term for material that is nearly all non-recyclable Number 7 plastic includes material known to leach hormone disrupting chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA) used for disposable food containers Even when plastic was recycled despite all the barriers listed above each cycle of the recycling process shortens the length of polymer chains resulting in a decrease in quality and eventually disposal of the material10

Waste pickers in lower-income countries on the frontlines of recycling do not have the resources to process plastic waste imports cleanly and safely They are left to handle the rejects from the formal well-regulated and well-resourced recycling industry in exporting countries with very little equipment or worker protections The fallout of Chinarsquos National Sword policy shows that much of what is considered ldquoplastic recyclingrdquo in theory was something entirely different in practice wealthy countries exported

their waste management costs to lower-income countries with devastating impacts on their environment and the health of their people

DROWNING IN PLASTIC

Provided that plastic waste is sorted and aggregated into defined streams for recycling it must have market value in order to be effectively recycled Plastic recycling is highly susceptible to external economic factors such as low price of oil and gas and global market fluctuations11

Simply put the glut of cheap fossil fuels has sparked a meteoric rise in virgin plastic production and it is killing the recycling market

The North American fracking boom has contributed to low natural gas prices and manufacturing companies now with access to cheap source material to make new plastics are doing just thatmdashrather than recycling they are adding to the volume of plastic on earth Global

Evolution of annual global plastic production

annual plastic production increased from 2 million tons in 1950 to 381 million tons in 2015 25 times the compound annual growth rate of the global gross domestic product for that period12

Future plastic production is behind fossil fuel companiesrsquo growth by 2050 it is estimated that the total volume of plastic ever produced will reach 34000 million tons (Mt)mdashover four times what has been produced so far representing 20 of all oil production and 15 of our total carbon budget13 In the US 264 new plastics-related facilities and expansions are currently planned to use gas from the shale fracking boom14

DISCARDED | PAGE 12

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Talking points
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Talking points

Overproduction of virgin plastic leads to low market prices for recycled plastic particularly because prices do not factor in the externalities of plastic production such as climate impacts from greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from oil and gas extraction Speaking at a Plastics Recycling conference in 2016 Tison Keel a senior director at IHS Chemical said he had ldquobad newsrdquo for the audience of recyclers PET plastic markets were ldquovastly over-suppliedrdquo and ldquothe price pressure on recycle[d material] is going to be sustained and the commitment of your customers to sustainability is going to be tested over the next three to four yearsrdquo15 This virgin plastic is being pumped into single-use plastic products mostly by a small handful of multinational corporations A constant increase in these companiesrsquo use of flexible and multi-layered packaging has been adding challenges to collection separation and recycling16

Rather than allowing corporations to produce plastic packaging without heed to the crisis of plastic pollution or its health and environmental impacts organizations are pushing for genuine corporate accountability The companies manufacturing plastic pollution should be central to taking responsibility for it In 239 cleanups in 42 countries across the world during 2018 partner organizations and volunteers of the Break Free From Plastic movement tallied the brands behind the plastic pollution they found across the world Coca-Cola PepsiCo and Nestleacute were the top three polluters accounting for 14 percent of the plastic pollution collected in the cleanups worldwide The rest of the top ten were made up of Danone Mondelez International Proctor and Gamble Unilever Perfetti van Melle Mars Incorporated and Colgate-Palmolive17

A perhaps unintended but critical outcome of Chinarsquos National Sword policy is a greater understanding that recycling is not a solution to plastic pollution Recycling pledges by companies do little to decrease the amount of plastic in the world or the negative environmental and health effects of plastic pollution particularly in the face of the data showing that only 9 of the worldrsquos plastic produced since 1950 has been recycled Instead it is imperative that we tackle the plastic pollution issue at the source by reducing fossil fuel extraction and rethinking our plastic production and consumption patterns The solution to plastic pollution and its effects on people and the environment around the world isnrsquot improved waste management nor finding new ways to recycle It is producing less plastic

THE FALLOUT

Exporting plastic pollution is the dark side of recycling by wealthy nations and has enabled the current industry model to encourage ever-increasing consumption without concern for the consequences

However serious impacts are beginning to be felt in wealthy countries plastic waste is piling up in ports and warehouses dumped into landfills or burned in incinerators The market for plastic scrap has plummeted Some towns and cities across the United States have curtailed their recycling programs particularly collection of 3-7 plastics18

Denied an overseas dumping ground after Chinarsquos ban Philadelphia Pennsylvania has been sending 200 tons of recycling a day to an incinerator according to a report by The Guardian 19 Ramped-up activity at the incinerator in Chester 27 kilometers south of Philadelphia has spurred concerns about dangerous dioxins being released into their air leaving the citizens with a feeling of frustration and anger that echoes that in importing countries

ldquoPeople in Chester feel hopelessmdashall they want is for their kids to get out escape Why should we be expendable Why should this place have to be burdened by peoplersquos trash and shitrdquo Chester resident and community activist Zulene Mayfield told The Guardian

Oregon had a law against dumping recyclables in landfills But that law was made possible by the fact that the state had previously exported much of its recycling to China After the ban Oregon issued special permits to circumvent the law and thousands of tons of recyclables have ended up in landfills20

A recycling company in Westborough Massachusetts has reported stockpiling recyclables as a stop-gap response to having nowhere to send it Ben Harvey told The New York Times21 that 6000 tons of paper and cardboard were piling up in his warehouse ldquoItrsquos really impacted our day-to-day operationsrdquo Harvey said ldquoItrsquos stifling merdquo

The trash and recycling of North Americans Germans Australians and Koreansmdashpeople who have long depended on lower-income countries to absorb their consumer plastic pollutionmdashare searching for new ports in which to dump their waste

DISCARDED | PAGE 13

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Talking point

DISCARDED | PAGE 14

CHAPTER 4MALAYSIA

Imported plastic is seen discarded in an illegal recycling factory that was recently shut down by government authorities in Kuala Langat Malaysia on 23rd January 2019 Photo courtesy of Adam Dean

PLASTIC SCRAP FLOODS MALAYSIA ldquoYOU ASK PEOPLE TO DIE WHILE YOU GO TO HEAVEN AND WE GO TO HELLrdquo

After China closed its doors to recycling imports cargo ships laden with tons of plastic scrap from the United States and Europe were diverted to the port of Klang on the western coast of Malaysia

From January to November of 2018 Malaysia was the top importer of plastic scrap receiving 157 of total plastic exports from the top exporting countries In 2017 the Ecology Center a hauler in Berkeley California placed a GPS tracker in a bale of mixed 1-7 non-bottle plastic recyclables to find out what happened to these low-grade materials they picked up from households in Berkeley After curbside recycling is delivered to a sorting facility the opacity of the global recycling market means therersquos no way for most haulers or sorters or the households they get the recycling from to know what really happens to their mixed plastic It is absorbed by a complicated web of brokers and middle men and often that means ending up in countries on the other side of the world

The tracker landed in the Arab-Malaysian Industrial Park south of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur Itrsquos a nondescript collection of warehouses including a cluster of plastic waste recycling facilities Trucks some piled with local plastic scrap others with imported baled plastic or in shipping cargo containers rumble into the plastic recycling factories22

Licensed plastic recycling companies sort out and process high quality often industrial-grade plastic The plastic is melted down and turned into pellets which are then sold to manufacturers in China Japan and other countries which use the material to make new plastic products from milk jugs and water bottles to motorcycle bodies and plastic industrial components

The challenge with plastic scrap lies with the significant quantities from plastic exports that cannot be recycled because the bale is contaminated with non-recyclable plastic or plastic that is too expensive to recycle or because sorting and separating recyclable components are too labor-intensive and in many cases environmentally destructive

JenjaromKuala Langat

Telok GongPulau Indah Klang

DISCARDED | PAGE 15

Small and medium-sized unlicensed and unregulated recycling plants sprouted up across the countryside surrounding Port KlangmdashJenjarom Kuala Langat Telok Gong in Selangormdashto attempt to capture value from the flood of plastic scrap

In Pulau Indah Klang a compound of two-storey shophouses with blown out glass windows and unpainted cement walls appeared abandoned Plastic scrap filled the ground floors spilling out into the empty roads Mangy dogs wandered around sniffing at the scrap

From among the pile of plastic scrap comes the methodical hammering of half a dozen men and women crouched into the specialized painstaking work of breaking down plastic components into recyclable parts There are heaps of routers labeled ATampT and D-Link fax machines office telephones remote controls and water meters from the Toronto hydroelectric system Workers tossed shattered black plastic into piles twisted off tiny metal screws peeled stickers from the water meters separated clear plastic from opaque polypropylene from high-density polyethylene banged off anything that wasnrsquot useful and piled it into a sack to be sold as plastic fuel for cement factories

The boss a gregarious Malaysian businessman named Vincent Lee said that after Chinarsquos ban there was a spike in illegal recycling operations in Malaysia ldquoYou see the factory for sale for rentrdquo Lee said ldquobehind the doors are the illegal Chinese factoriesrdquo

Lee said the United States only wants to deal with good quality plastic the rest is exported to places like Malaysia And he has become an expert on the afterlives of the contents of the recycling bins on the other side of the world The biggest business is electronic products Lee explains They pay you to dispose ldquoBecause in America you canrsquot get rid of the waste in Malaysia you canrdquo They melt it down and turn it into bricks roads and plastic pelletsmdashan industry thatrsquos much rarer in the United States

Lee raves about printer cartridges ldquoCartridges I love cartridgesrdquo At his factory in Borneo theyrsquore melted into resin extruded into long black strings then chopped into pellets ldquoThey sell for the highest pricerdquo Lee said They make Sprite and 7-Up bottles into rolls of thin green plastic and white bottles into polyester

Lee estimates that 80 percent of the scrap he acquires is usable Twenty percent is not things like the stickers

DOWNCYCLING IN ASIAN COUNTRIES

Struggling with an ever-staggering amount of plastic waste most of which is not being recycled some countries have explored less conventional forms of plastic recycling These include ldquoplastic-to-roadrdquo or ldquoPlasphaltrdquo as well as ldquoplastic-to-brickrdquo and other building materials or furniture made from plastic waste India has been leading the way introducing a regulation to make the use of plastic waste in road construction mandatory23 As of 2018 almost 10000 km of roads have been paved in India using plastic waste such as water botles single-use bags and food wrappers24 In Indonesia the government announced plans to use a similar technique to build roads in Bali Jakarta and other cities in 201725 Behind these recycling eforts is Dow Chemical a major producer of plastics and associated chemicals which launched several plastic-to-road pilot programs in India and Indonesia in 201726

Consumer goods corporations are also investing in various downcycling practices In the Philippines Nestle collaborates with the Philippine Plastics Industry Association (PPIA) to produce bricks using multi-layered single-use plastic waste in four cities27 and in Mexico Procter amp Gamble is using diapers to produce roof tiles and upholstery flling28 The consequences of these practices are unknown and litle research has been done on their environmental or health impacts However there are known risks associated with hazardous chemicals potentially leaching into the ecosystem when exposed to heat light and water and the shedding of microplastics which atract pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) If this happens water sources used for drinking and fshing and soil used for farming could be contaminated

DISCARDED | PAGE 16

KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Sticky Note
Unknown consequences of making durable plastic goods - no research on health impacts (light heat and water)

from the Canadian water meters which he sells to cement factories and boilers to burn as fuel where dangerous dioxins are likely released into the air

Lee doesnrsquot buy the really dirty scrap the stuff thatrsquos contaminated with household trash or things like nylon fishing nets cable ties string netting plastic bags and engine parts They need to be washed and the wastewater filtered He points to the operation in the neighboring warehouse owned by Wong Kok She ldquoHersquos a genius He takes everything therersquos rubbish everywhere but he makes his moneyrdquo Lee said

Wongrsquos employees were hunched over the excruciating work of prying metal nuts embedded into plastic extracting the last bits of value from trash The profit margins are tiny but Wong is dedicated He picks up a piece of molded black plastic ldquoThis one will spend 1000 years in the landfill and it still wonrsquot degraderdquo Wong said ldquoI feel sorry for it to be ending up in the landfillrdquo

Lee said that after China shut down plastic scrap imports his business partner sensing an opportunity traveled to the United States for due diligence to look into opening a recycling factory nearer to where the imports originated His partner came back convinced

Imported plastic cases from electronic products mostly originating in USA Canada and China are seen at an illegal recycling factory near Klang Malaysia on 21st January 2019

that recycling on US soil wasnrsquot a viable business ldquoAmericans donrsquot have the expertiserdquo Lee said for sifting out the last bits of recycling from consumer products The second reason was what he called ldquothe environmental issuerdquo

Environmental protection regulations make it unprofitable for recycling factories to process plastic scrap on North American soil But even as Americans legislate the protection of their own environment they continue to use dispose of and export plastics theyrsquove deemed too toxic to countries like Malaysia leaving others to suffer the consequences of American consumerism

Lee marvels at the hypocrisy ldquoSo selfshrdquo he said ldquoYou ask people to die while you go to heaven and we go to hellrdquo

PARTICULAR HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH E-WASTE RECYCLING

People working in the informal recycling sector are exposed to signifcant health risks when they process e-waste which involves primitive recycling techniques such as burning the plastic housing of electronic equipment circuit boards and PVC-coated wires or extracting metals in toxic acid baths29 Hazardous substances emited by burning plastic casings include dioxin brominated fame retardants lead cadmium chromium and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which may afect the reproductive system immune system and cause cancers Exposure is through accumulation of chemicals in soil water and food as well as direct contact or inhalation of the fumes30 In addition to dioxins and furans brominated fame retardants (BFRs) man-made chemicals that are commonly used in a wide variety of products including electrical and electronic devices are of particularly grave concern These chemicals are known to cause developmental efects endocrine disruption immunotoxicity and (for some PBDE congeners) possibly cancer risks31 Like PCBs BFRs persist in the air soil and water entering the food chain and fnd their way into human faty tissue blood breast milk and even human fetuses

DISCARDED | PAGE 17

KWilkins
Highlight

GRASSROOTS ACTION ldquoWE HAD TO DO IT OURSELVESrdquo

In the town of Jenjarom in the Kuala Langat district 25 kilometers south of Port Klang Tan Ching Hin a prominent citizen fielded increasing complaints about the new businesses opened by the Chinese mainlanders They had arrived in Jenjarom at the end of 2017 in the months after China announced their ban on plastic scrap

A friend of his Tiger Lim owner of a plantation downstream from one of the new recycling factories said the fruits on his palms rotted before they ripened ruining his harvest Lim said the two crocodiles that lived in the river disappeared chased away by the toxic runoff from the factory

Others complained about respiratory problems and skin rashes Mothers worried about their children the elderly coughed all night For months people walked around town with their eyes itching Everyone complained about the smell

ldquoYou taste it in your mouth you smell itrdquo said Daniel Tay who works at the local school

Tan wrote a letter to the district council about the pollution but didnrsquot get a response ldquoWe had to do it ourselvesrdquo he said

The illegal factories were hard to find set up by design in

remote fields around Jenjarom To gather information Tan said he went to wakes eavesdropping into conversations in case some of the gathered mourners lived near a factory and were complaining about the smell of burning trash He interrogated the local property agents who helped the Chinese businessmen find lots to rent If he found a promising lead Tan saved the location on Google maps In the first report he identified 20 factories operating without licenses When he presented his findings to the district council they asked him if he didnrsquot have something better to do

As the support for his quest grew more volunteers joined his cause By July 2018 he had formed a group dedicated to trying to shut down illegal unregulated plastic recycling factories called Kuala Langat Environmental Protection Action Group They held a fundraiser and began flying drones over the illegal factories as proof of their activities identifying 38 plastic scrap factories operating in the district only one of which was licensed

On August 2 2018 after receiving a letter from the group with their findings an enforcement team consisting of officials from the local government immigration the environment department the fire brigade and police raided eight illegal factories cutting

HUMAN HEALTH IMPACTS OF OPEN BURNING

Burning plastic in the open results in direct emissions of pollutants including dioxins furans mercury and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) into the air32 Especially with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) contributing to high emissions of dioxin the practice of plastic burning can pose a serious health threat such as reproductive and developmental problems damage to the immune system hormonal disorders and cancers33

Afer the combustion is over high concentrations of toxic substances can remain in the residual ash Dioxins for example have been detected in residual ash in correlation with the amount of chlorine-containing plastic burned34 Once leached in the form of ash dioxins further persist in the environment afecting nearby plants and animals and accumulating in human bodies35 Other pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) have also been reported to remain in the residual ash36

Acknowledging these environmental health risks of open burning of waste including plastics UNEPrsquos guideline on Article 5 and Annex C of the Stockholm Convention on POPs advises to cease open and other uncontrolled burning of wastes defning open burning as an environmentally unacceptable process that generates toxic chemicals (subparagraph (f) of Annex C Part V section A)

DISCARDED | PAGE 18

off their water and electricity supplies and arresting 13 migrant laborers

It was a moment of triumph for Tan Ching Hin and the Kuala Langat Environmental Protection Action Group Tan said that within two weeks those factories had left For nearly a year they had endured the daily smell of burning plastic and that raid was the first of several that would sharply curb illegal plastic recycling factories in their district

Tan still drives around Kuala Langat staying vigilant keeping an eye out for new factories that might have sprouted up One afternoon in January he frantically told his driver to do a u-turn He had spotted some new aluminum fencing and what looked like industrial bales just visible over the top They pulled over and he squeezed through the gate shooing away a few barking dogs in the yard He inspected the industrial sacks It appeared to be an unmanned cement factory not plastic scrap this time

In October 2018 the Malaysian government announced a permanent ban on importing plastic waste by 2021 and imports to Malaysia dropped steeply

Still Tan worries that if they donrsquot stay vigilant the illegal plastic factories will come back

ENFORCEMENT ldquoA HEAVY BURDENrdquo

Ng Sze Han State Executive Councillor of Selangor where Kuala Langat is located says the proliferation of illegal plastic factories is a significant stress on state coffers

In January 2019 Ng was touring factories the state had shut down in the last six months to monitor progress on the cleanup The authorities confiscated the machines and there were no workers to be found But the trash was still there

ldquoIt is very disturbingrdquo Ng said ldquoThis is a heavy burden to the state government as well as the local governmentrdquo They receive no tax revenue from the illegal operators but are left with the cost and the responsibility of enforcement and monitoring Ng said his officers are working overtime on weekends and public holidays just to deal with these illegal plastic waste recycling operations

Workers recycle imported plastic in a legal plastic recycling factory in Klang Malaysia on 23rd January 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 19

In June the state government started receiving complaints about burning plastic and growing mountains of trash It took two months for the officers to locate and identify 104 illegal operators most of which only opened after the China ban Trash was moving very quickly he said Rent tripled and the stench and pollution in the river quickly followed The environment department is now checking the water and soil regularly for contamination

In one of the sites Ng visited there were flattened United States Postal Service crates ldquoMade in USArdquo Fiji water bottles containers from stuffing mushrooms grown in the USA and packed in Avondale Pennsylvania bottles from a North American Bottling Company in Plano Texas orange juice containers distributed from Cincinnati Ohio and a plastic bag from Stater Bros Market a Central California grocery chain promising to bring the flavors of the world to its shoppers

Months after they closed down the factory the trash mixed in with the recycling continued to fester

ldquoPlease take your rubbish backrdquo Ng said

Ngrsquos next stop was a plastic recycling factory at the end of the dirt road It was shut down in late 2018 then set on fire Mountains of plastic waste many with French and German labels were covered in soot and muddy water The landownerrsquos son was on-site surveying the mountain of trash that had accumulated outside the burnt out building 4000 tons of plastic that he now had to find a way to dispose of He says he and his father never inspected their tenantrsquos activities As long as the rent showed up in their bank account they asked no questions Now the tenants were nowhere to be found He didnrsquot know they were importing trash onto his land

Ng Sze Han bends down and picks up the nearest scraps of plastic from the ground One was a torn package of German hazelnut wafers the other was cat food packaging from Spain He toes a few more scraps a jug of Coop milk emblazoned with the Union Jack and an empty packet of French shredded emmental ldquoThis is definitely imported rubbishrdquo he said

Imported plastic is seen discarded in an illegal recycling factory that was recently shut down by govt authorities in Kuala Langat Malaysia on 23rd January 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 20

INTENTIONS AND CHALLENGES

The Malaysian government sees Chinarsquos ban as an opportunity

ldquoWe are serious in becoming a huge player for this the industry playersrdquo said Harris Idaham Rashid Special Officer to the Minister of Housing and Local Government However unregulated trade has meant that rather than benefiting from the global recycling market they were instead taking in trash and plastic pollution ldquoOur country was basically a dumping ground for first world nations and we wanted to put a stop to itrdquo Idaham said

Despite the economic opportunity Malaysia has identified in importing regulated plastic scrap specifically homogeneous industrial waste Idaham said ldquoPlastic waste is not subject to receiving country assentrdquo unlike hazardous waste By international law recipient countries have to be notified of imports of hazardous waste but not plastic waste

Idaham concedes that Malaysia faces complex efforts in enforcing their laws on the types of plastic scrap that can be imported into the country including corruption in Malaysian customs but enforcement in global trade requires a global effort

ldquoRich countries want to ship out their rubbish there is a reason why they are pushing over hererdquo Idaham said ldquoWe donrsquot want itrdquo


MALAYSIA TAKES ACTION

Yeo Bee Yin the Malaysian Minister for Energy Science Technology Environment and Climate Change has mobilised national resources aggressively to stem the flow of contaminated plastic recycling arriving in her country In a statement to local press37 in February 2019 Malaysia said that the government had shut down 139 plastic recycling factories since July 2018 109 of which were illegal factories and the rest did not comply with environmental regulations

Some 44 of the companies will be charged with offenses against Malaysiarsquos Environmental Quality Act 1974 with fines totaling 3 million ringgit or about US$740000

ldquoAlthough we have met the target we will not stop Enforcement operations will be amplifiedrdquo Yeo said during the press conference

However a report in March by The Straits Times38

suggests that illegal recyclers continue to find ways around the ban moving away from the areas around Port Klang where enforcement efforts are currently concentrated Half an hour from Penang port north of Klang local reporters found an illegal plastic dump they estimated to be the size of six football fields with plastic scrap piled two stories high Trucks arrived with fresh loads of trash and black smoke from open burning rose over the dump

DISCARDED | PAGE 21

DISCARDED | PAGE 22

CHAPTER 5THAILAND

ldquoITrsquoS TOXIC TRASH AND WE ARE LIVING HERErdquo

When China instituted their new policy Thailand saw the largest percentage increase of foreign waste imports from the previous year at over 1000 percent Much of the imported trash was absorbed into the countryrsquos waste and recycling infrastructure exacerbating existing issues of a mostly unregulated and sometimes violent industry

Sarayoot Sonraksa is a shrimp farmer and a former biochemist The community asks him for help when they are having trouble with water electricity or local disputes They also complain about illegal dumping the choking smell from burning plastic or their fields singed and barren from industrial waste dumping He says dealing with the waste industry is the most dangerous thing he has to do

Sonraksa has received three direct threats from the mafia two in 2015 and one in 2018 They were serious enough that hersquos gone into hiding Dr Somnuck a researcher who focuses on plastic waste was run off an illegal dumpsite by

men in a van who were brandishing guns

The threats havenrsquot stopped Sonraksa or Dr Somnuck But in 2013 an environmental activist named Prajob Nao-opas39 was assassinated for protesting against illegal dumping so the possibility that one of these gangs will make good on their threats is always in the backs of their minds

Imported plastic waste enters Thailand by way of the deep water port of Laem Chabang Police and customs authorities have apprehended shipping containers packed with plastic scrap contaminated with waste at Laem Chabang though others have made their way into Thailandrsquos dumps processing plants and recycling factories

As Dr Somnuck drove from the clean industrial parks and tidy warehouses near Laem Chabang where licensed processing facilities operate to Chachoengsao the broad paved highways gave way to narrow roads with ragged edges flanked with farmland there were fewer cement houses and more made from corrugated metal hammocks hung from trees and waterwheels spun in shallow fish ponds

He explained that at each step in the global chain of the

Chachoengsao

Laem Chabang

DISCARDED | PAGE 23

recycling industry each playermdashfrom sophisticated waste management facilities in the United States and other wealthy countries to the licensed factories getting the first take of imported plastic scrapmdashskimmed off what was valuable to them and passed ever-less valuable more difficult-to-process waste to the next facility

The lowest-grade waste is taken to places like the village of Kok Hua Khao in Chachoengsao

An agricultural district adjacent to Bangkok and within trucking distance of Laem Chabang Port Chachoengsao is accessible to the sources of plastic waste but far enough away that enforcement becomes lax Sayaroot Sonraksa the activist and shrimp farmer said recycling factories have operated here with little oversight for years He has encountered instances of workers melting plastic without respirators toxic liquids being poured into farmlands and trash burned at night

Sonraksa said he has snuck into one dump to inspect the activities ldquoThe moment I stepped in I felt badrdquo After he went home and took a shower ldquoI could still taste the chemicals in my mouthrdquo

He points out that the chemicals are still in their groundwater ldquowe also have fish farms shrimp farms and itrsquos going to the USrdquo

ldquoWersquore leaving the burden of disease to future generationsrdquo Dr Somnuck said ldquoItrsquos not happening now but it will affect people laterrdquo He lists off some of the health effects of plastic waste miscarriages infertility premature delivery Toxins can accumulate in the respiratory systems or there can be chromosomal effects in the tissue of humans or fish

Driving through the village Sayaroot Sonraksa and Dr Somnuck point out signs of plastic pollution A spot where waste was buried a cluster of homes where three or four people have complained of respiratory issues

Kuchon Umsawat 49 says his land is fed by a stream that runs next to the plastic recycling factory Last year one of his fishponds turned a startling shade of bright orange He took a bamboo pole and stirred the water it was thick and murky When he had it tested it was contaminated with 14 kinds of heavy metals and other pollutants

DISCARDED | PAGE 24

ldquoThe vegetables didnrsquot surviverdquo Umsawat said The fruit trees are still theremdashtamarind bananas oranges rose apples and pomelos He said he wouldnrsquot dare to eat them or even sell them He estimates that because of the plastic pollution he makes 100000 Thai baht less per year or about US$3000 He can no longer water the grass which means he doesnrsquot have enough hay to sell or feed to his cows He has to buy water from a local dealer so his cows can drink The costs add up and hersquos had to sell two of his six cows because he couldnrsquot afford the water

He was shocked to learn that the trash came from America ldquoIt makes no senserdquo he said ldquoHow did it end up hererdquo

ldquoItrsquos toxic trash and we are living hererdquo Umsawat said ldquoItrsquos very bad they are doing this to Thailandrdquo

ldquoIf Thai people knew before we wouldnrsquot want to accept itrdquo Suthep Bhumin the local village leader said ldquoEven the domestic trash is a burden for usrdquo

THE LIVES OF WASTE PICKERS

Waste pickers are workers in the informal Because waste pickers are not formal workers economy who recover recyclable materials from recognized by their local municipalities waste and are in many ways on the frontlines they do not earn a decent and reliable salary of the plastic pollution crisis In parts of the or receive benefts and are not subject to global south they ofen collect materials for worker protections However waste pickers recycling that would otherwise be dumped in many regions and countries around the burned or released into the open environment world have organized to advocate for beter and therefore serve a critical role in building labor conditions and recognition from local towards a circular economy Waste picking governmental institutions For example the can be a dangerous business Waste pickers cooperative SWaCH in Pune India succeeded ofen live on or near dumpsites and risk health in gaining formal employment for over 3541 problems from handling contaminated scrap waste pickers to date and provide door-to-door air emissions from open burning and disease collection for over 800000 households daily43

from fies rats and other vermin

DISCARDED | PAGE 25

DISCARDED | PAGE 26

CHAPTER 6INDONESIA

Waste pickers collect plastic from amongst recycle domestic Indonesian waste in the Bantar Gabang dump thought to be the largest in the world in Bantar Gabang Indonesia on 23rd January 2019 The plastic recycling factories surrounding the dump used to recycle imported plastics too but in 2018 the imported plastics were banned here and recycled in Surabaya and Karawang Photo courtesy of Adam Dean

TREASURE IN THE TRASH

To the villagers of North Somengko it seems the world is coming to them Dollar bills Kuwaiti riyals Australian dollars euros most of all itrsquos treasure for them in the piles of trash In one particular heap a Capri Sun Finnish dish soap Whiskas Craisins Cheez Its and Hersheyrsquos chocolate peek out from amongst the rubbish

As countries like Malaysia and Thailand tightened their laws around importing plastic waste and increased enforcement the Indonesian government has yet to take action against the incoming scourge of plastic waste and financial insecurity in the country has created an opening for the informal plastic waste industry

Like the poor villages of China before it middlemen and brokers are exploiting poverty in rural Indonesia offering money in exchange for environmental pollution Families are asked to choose between the immediacy of work and the abstraction of harm they canrsquot see

Theyrsquore farmers laborers construction workersmdash Indonesiarsquos most insecure lowest wage workforce The money they make sifting through the plastic waste for

recycling and treasure is easy money to supplement what little they make in other jobs

In Indonesia imported plastic waste comes mixed in with paper and cardboard recycling Ecoton a GAIA partner organization in East Java estimates that as much as 60ndash70 percent of the imported paper recycling is contaminated with plastic waste The districts around paper recycling factories in Indonesia are surrounded by a corresponding plastic industry to process the contamination

The paper companies separate wash and strip the plastic load it into trucks and dump it in surrounding villages where middlemenmdashwidely referred to in East Java as the mafiamdashfind communities of low-wage workers who are willing to sift through the plastic waste

The mafia tells them that the plastic waste dumped into their cassava fields or on their front yards is an opportunity for them a good job In exchange for sifting out the last bits of recyclable plastic and metal from trash they can keep whatever they find

Their only payment is in whatever treasure they can find in the trash

Sumengko

Gresik and Surabaya

Karawang

Bangun

DISCARDED | PAGE 27

Usman 45 who was sitting under the shade of a banana tree with a few friends said that the dump trucks started coming to these fields about two months before Therersquos one delivery in the morning and another in the afternoon Sometimes itrsquos one truck or as many as eight in a day There are about 40 people who work these dumps but if itrsquos a really big delivery as many as 200 people can come from the surrounding neighborhoods to sift through the plastic scrap

In two months hersquos found about $100 among the trash though the money changer who comes to collect their foreign currency gives him about 7000 Indonesian rupiah for each US dollar half the global market exchange rate

ldquoWersquore satisfied with the money we earn from this jobrdquo Usman said ldquoIf therersquos no dumping here then therersquos no job we need this to make moneyrdquo

The moneychanger a man who introduced himself as Alec before speeding off on his motorcycle said that he circulated in 15 different villages in the districts of Gresik and Surabaya in East Java

CONFLICT IN THE VILLAGE

Anam 48 who raises long-eared goats in North Somengko has watched with dismay the daily deliveries of plastic waste coming to his village It started in July 2018 and every day for the last several months his neighbors have been burning the trash that they cannot recycle

The townrsquos cobbled alleys snake between simple cement houses Dump trucks unload plastic trash into the middle of the road or fill the yards of waste pickers Villagers gather around the plastic waste to spend the day sifting high-density polyethylene (HDPE) from regular polyethylene chatting with one another and combing the trash for foreign cash

Toddlers play with stuffed animals pulled from the trash One man pushes a wheelbarrow from the pile and into the communal back field of a cluster of houses The ground is soft and raised with a thick layer of damp plastic At the edges perpetual fires burn thick smoke rising coating the rooftops trees and plants with a dusting of black ash

Anam 48 feeds his goats in Sumengko Village where he lives and is full of plastic recyclers who burn waste plastic near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 21st February 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 28

The neighborhood is divided between those with new front-yard plastic recycling businesses and people like Anam who feel powerless to stop it He has complained to the village chief but still the plastic waste kept coming

Anam reminded his neighbors that there are children breathing in the smoke When the rain comes hersquos concerned about the chemicals from the plastics leaching into the soil No one is sick yet he said to them but maybe later It did not go well ldquoThey hate merdquo Anam said They accused him of being jealous and trying to kill their business

ldquoIf I open my mouth there will be a riotrdquo he said ldquoSo I just keep it shutrdquo

Sitting on his front porch Anam looks out into the treetops and blue sky streaked with smoke from the burning trash fires at the streets and his neighborsrsquo yard now piled with trash and thinks about how different his village has become in just one year Hersquos seen birds dying and the wind blowing smoke into the houses

Anam is faced with the tension of the recycling industry and the environment ldquoTheyrsquore only looking at the benefit but not concerning themselves with the effectrdquo

ldquoPLEASE TELL THE UNITED NATIONSrdquo

Didek Heriyanto known as Polo Hari is the elected village chief of North Sumengko He has spoken to Anam and others in the village who complained about the growing problem of plastic pollution

In August 2018 he sent a letter of objection to the provincial government of Gresik complaining about the mafia the smell and the water contamination He collected signatures of the people in the village demanding action

He is still waiting

Meanwhile he says the mafia has intimidated him delivered verbal threats They told him ldquodonrsquot disturb this business of oursrdquo He blames the mafia for creating conflict in the village by taking advantage of the economic situation of the poorer villagers

He does not blame the village waste pickers he wants the government to do something about what

he considers hazardous waste He believes the paper companies who are importing the plastic waste into Gresik should accept responsibility for disposing of the waste rather than dumping into his village leaving the people with no choice but to burn it

Polo Hari would like to stop the industry ldquoItrsquos not fair itrsquos outrageousrdquo Polo Hari said ldquoI must protect my people if I let this happen I am uselessrdquo

The plastic waste picking industry has only been in his part of Indonesia for less than a year Hersquos very worried that it will get bigger As it expands hersquos concerned the health problems will get worse as well as the environmental contamination But to stop it he says he is up against forces more powerful than he is The police and the government back up the plastic scrapping businesses ldquoThatrsquos why people like me canrsquot do anythingrdquo

Polo Hari does not know who else to turn to He feels that the Indonesian government is complicit in a form of oppression being imposed on his people that he likens to colonization

Didik poses for a portrait outside a relatives home in Sumengko Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 21st February 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 29

ldquoPlease tell the United Nationsrdquo he said ldquoI just want to be healthy my people and my countryrdquo

A CAUTIONARY TALE ldquoI JUST COULDNrsquoT TAKE IT ANY MORErdquo

The plastic scrapping industry in North Sumengko may be newmdashoperations at the paper company have expanded since Chinarsquos banmdashbut in the next village they have been processing plastics for a decade Polo Hari worries that the problems there will be the future of North Sumengko

Most of the houses in South Sumengko are filled with plastic scrap some of it sorted others piled into heaps for burning

Polo Harirsquos cousin Suri 50 lives in South Sumengko Her next door neighbors are plastic waste pickers and that afternoon a pile of plastic was burning next to the road in front of their house

Suri 50 who has suffered health problems related to plastic waste burning sits outside her home in Sumengko Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 21st February 2019

Suri says her headaches are getting worse and itrsquos getting harder to breathe Her skin is breaking out in itchy rashes In the last year shersquos been to the hospital three times ldquoI just couldnrsquot take it anymorerdquo Suri said The first time the doctors thought she was suffering a heart attack They did a cardiogram but the results came back fine ldquobut I could not breatherdquo she said They put her on an oxygen tank and let her breathe through a nebulizer For the first time in months she said she felt comfort

Suri said her health problems often have her thinking about her nephew He was ten years old when he died suddenly four years ago The doctors did not give an explanation but Surirsquos family think it might have been a tumor or cancer Another relative died of a heart attack and respiratory problems The air at the time they died was so dark and smoky Suri said She believes it was the burning trash that killed them

DANGERS OF INCINERATION

Waste incineration releases a range of pollutants to the air water and soil such as carbon monoxide acidic gases (NOx SO2 and HCl) acidic particles certain metals (cadmium lead mercury chromium arsenic and beryllium) dioxins and furans polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) Direct and indirect exposure to such substances including through inhalation of contaminated air direct contact with contaminated soil or water or ingestion of toxins that enter the food chain can have adverse health impacts afecting the neurological immune reproductive and endocrine systems In addition to air emissions pollutants captured by air fltering devices remain concentrated in ash slag or waste water afer incineration and leach into the environment through various pathways including open yards ash landflls or use in cement or soil amendments40

DISCARDED | PAGE 30

POTENTIAL POLLUTANTS GENERATED FROM BURNING OF PLASTICS

CARBON MONOXIDE DIOXINS ANO FU RANS

Causes dizziness headaches and stowed reflexes May cause cancer causes growth defects affects Afferu mental runctlon visual acuity and DNA affects Immune and repoltluctlve system~ alenne$$ Reacts with other pollutants In the air tmiddoto form ground level otone

C= O

POLYNUCLEAR AROMATIC VOLATILE ORGANIC HYOROCARBONS (PAH) COMPOUNDS (VOCSI

cancer caus-ing agent in most animal species May cause problems ranging from cancer risks to lndudl~ mammals fish and birds neJvous disorders respltatory lrrltationUlness

chronic lung dlsease Contributes to tow level ozone (smog)

PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) ALOEHYOES

A complex mixtwe of extremely small Toxic chemicals that result from the combustion particles and liquid droplets of hydrocarbons An animal carcinogen causes causes lrritatlon of repiratory tract eye and respiratory illness and headachelt aggravated asthma contributes to chrotilc ob$rUctlve pulmonary dlwase

nt bull Mochffl bullIr pollvdon ltontrol dwkbull qn ~ nd COlIC-lllltratbull _ ltII tM ~-ti fflciMHtOJ How-wbullr MY MftW u ptWIHI pollbull hnts ffObull bei9 MCI into theeftVilOftnlffl ilI the (OfflI of~ a or slvdgtnoran dleyapt-maftJ lishy

bullrdous -i011bull Hachbullbull tt r pitr1kks ~ GATA (21 2) lndeefaton MUj Nltti about Wat to Ener11middot

Courtesy of Pietro Bruni

DISCARDED | PAGE 31

WHY INDONESIA MAY BECOME THE NEXT CHINA

In 2010 the journalist Adam Minter gained entrance to Wenrsquoan County in China then the global center of plastic recycling In his book Junkyard Planet41 Minter described the process that transformed Wenrsquoan from a bucolic pocket of eastern China to what he calls an environmental ldquodead zonerdquo42

The process was accidental Minter wrote with one resident telling another about the money to be made in sifting through trash The government did not step in to stop it and incrementally Wenrsquoan county became the heart of the global plastic waste trade

Minter writes ldquoWith money on their minds and increasingly flowing into their pockets the townrsquos leaders turned their backs on the obvious negative effects of becoming a place where other people dump their trashmdasheven if the trash has valuerdquo

In 2011 the Chinese government shut down the plastic scrap trade in Wenrsquoan by introducing new environmental regulations The trade scattered to different parts of the country

The same pattern of economic incentives and government complicity or inattention is playing out in Indonesian villages suddenly on the receiving end of plastic scrap that used to go to China

In East Java Nama Poniman a local official in Sumengko issued permits for plastic recyclers affiliated with the paper factories to truck plastic waste to the yards of the village waste pickers

He says he is concerned about the pollution caused by the plastic waste and that ldquoPersonally I am disturbed by the air pollutionrdquo

However he adds that he is equally concerned about the problem of joblessness in the area ldquoIt is difficult to shut downrdquo Poniman said defending the paper recycling factories importing plastic scrap into Sumengko ldquoThe cooperation between the company and the people is goodrdquo

He says that once his term of office is finished he is considering entering the recycling industry himself

Poniman is one among many Indonesian government officials swayed into supporting the plastic waste trade In November 2018 in a move that runs counter to the trend in Malaysia and Thailand the Indonesian minister of industry Airlangga Hartarto sent a letter to the environment minister requesting that they lift the existing (but largely unenforced) ban on importing plastic

There are important differences between China and Indonesia chief among them is the lack of an in-country manufacturing and export industry on the scale of China However the story of Wenrsquoan is instructive As plastic waste searches for the paths of least resistance countries like Indonesia where workers are choosing between poverty or the environment is a prime new dumping ground for the dirty plastic recycling trade

THE RECYCLING KING OF BANGUN

Like Wenrsquoan County in China Bangun in East Java runs on plastic

There is plastic climbing up the walls of the villagersquos cement houses It tumbles out of corrugated tin warehouses The rain drips from the edges of plastic packaging like flower petals into little rivulets tracing their way through the pathways carved into the mountains

of scrap piled higher than the rooftops In some places the trash is thick on the ground in others it is raked thin to dry under the sun Chickens wander through pecking at grubs among the fields of trash

Colorful houses sit in valleys of rolling hills of plastic waste From overhead the town looks like a sea of mottled plastic scrapmdashthere is more plastic than anything else

Yoga Deo Wahyu Andreansyah 42 a wiry self-possessed man says no one in Indonesia is better at sorting plastic scrap than the people of Bangun From where he stands itrsquos plastic as far as the eye can see and it all belongs to him

Wahyu walks through piles of meticulously sorted trash It may all look the same to the unprofessional eye he says but it is all different And to scrape the last of the value from the plastic scrap it must be separated exactingly He pulls a bag from a pile PE he explains stretches when pulled PP bags are more brittle they rip he said as he tugged at the edges HDPE and HD are thicker EVA is the stretchiest like cling film

DISCARDED | PAGE 32

Wahyu also knows their afterlives Milk jugs become to-go containers clear PET water bottles become more water bottles Hard black plastic can be turned into the motorcycle he has sitting in the yard The trash with no valuemdashmetallized chips packaging candy wrappers and zip lock bagsmdashhe collects into bales and sends it to tofu factories that burn it as fuel

Since January 2018 Wahyu said more of the plastic scrap coming into Bangun is imported He can tell by the brands on the plastic and it contains a higher proportion of recyclable material He is happy because there is more money in it But Wahyu has been in this business for 15 years and as much as the plastic scrapping industry has given him he also knows what it has cost him

He has watched the industry in Bangun expand from one factory to nearly the whole town awash in plastic waste ldquoIt was fresh here before but not anymore Therersquos no escaping the smellrdquo he said ldquolike soda bleach and chemicalsrdquo

ldquoWhen you breathe a lot your body becomes slower If itrsquos too much it breaks your lungs But not suddenlyrdquo Wahyu said ldquoSlowlyrdquo

There is another health effect Wahyu is concerned with ldquoMy wife miscarried twice because she was working hererdquo he said After years of disappointment he took some of his earnings from the business and paid 70 million rupiah for in-vitro fertilization and he and his wife were able to have a baby who is now three years old ldquoItrsquos bad for the motherrdquo Wahyu said of the plastic that surrounds them Hersquos aware of the health problems in the lungs and hersquos afraid in the long term there will be even more problems

To reconcile his daily actions with grim long-term realities he does what people across the world are doing from the yards of Bangun to North American consumers bellying up to juice bars in California He is employing a combination of denial short-term thinking and healthy eating Wahyu said every day he drinks an herbal tonic of turmeric ginseng honey and free-range eggs that he believes will fend off the health consequences from plastic

ldquoWe become immune to it when you are here for a long timerdquo Wahyu said ldquoYou become numbrdquo It sounds like

he is trying to convince himself

Wahyu says the well water in Bangun is yellow contaminated from the plastic so the paper mill where much of their plastic comes from provides water from a deep well When it rains the smell is worse

Most people in Bangun work in the plastic scrap industry he said ldquoBut no one protests the conditions even though they all knowrdquo

Mr Yoga (left) poses for a portrait with his wife and daughter amongst imported plastic waste at his recycling factory in Bangun Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 22nd February 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 33

END OF THE LINE PLASTIC FUEL

Bangun isnrsquot the final stop for the plastic waste As two dump trucks pull into Wahyursquos yard another leaves stacked with plastics that cannot be recycled because they are soiled too expensive to recycle or are simply non-recyclable like potato chip bags plastic food packaging or bubble wrap

They are bound for East Javarsquos local tofu factories in Kelangan Teropodo a town less than an hourrsquos drive from Wahyursquos plastic scrap empire

At one of the tofu factories clouds of steam engulf the laborers who are draining soy milk in silken sheets forming the tofu in rectangular wooden molds or packing the stiff squares into plastic bags for sale

In the back candy wrappers litter the floor like dead leaves Plastic trash the kind sifted out by the waste pickers in Sumengko and Bangun is shoveled into a makeshift metal furnace and burned as fuel Smoke billowed from the chimney

KARAWANG DANGER OF THE UNREGULATED INDUSTRY SPREADING

In July 2018 Ade Junedi 42 found himself without a job Junedi looked out into the 04 hectare of field in front of his house and was contemplating turning it into a fish farm when a representative of a nearby paper company offered to pay him to dump plastic waste into his yard

Junedi accepted One dump truck after another began emptying plastic into his yardmdashimported scrap The pile grew and the paper company representative told him to ldquojust get rid of itrdquo

Junedi had heard that plastic recycling could be sold so he began sorting He started with just he and his wife sorting plastic from aluminum PP from HDPE trash from cash Before long Junedi was hiring employees When his neighbors complained he built a fence to hide the trash but invited them to inspect the site itself

Plastic waste he was told is not classified as hazardous waste He tells his neighbors the same thing He says he is happy to spread the wealth and some of the neighbors who

Goldman Prize Winner and GAIA partner Prigi Arisandi of the Brantas River Coalition Wastewater from the plastic and paper recycling factories around Surabaya Indonesia are polluting the river which supplies drinking water to 5 million people in the area Photo courtesy of Ecoton

DISCARDED | PAGE 34

initially complained have now joined him in the scrap business themselves

Junedi became an evangelist for the riches to be found in plastic scrap and in the process is creating a new industry in Karawang 80 kilometers east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta He says that in his district there are now ten front-yard scrap shops and their main problem now is that the industry in Karawang has proliferated so much that there is not enough scrap for all the new businesses

ldquoItrsquos fast moneyrdquo Junedi said He points to the Elf truck parked in his yard ldquoI never could have imagined I would own something like thatrdquo Junedi says he used to earn 30 million rupiah or about US$2100 in one year Since he started in the plastic scrapping industry he now earns that in a month

Junedi is a modest man hardworking and well-liked by his employees One of them Sugiharso a wiry

65-year-old man sat among the plastic waste with his two-year-old son in his arms Sugiharso used to work as a laborer unloading trucks at a warehouse He left the job when he heard there was now money in waste picking at the plastic scrap businesses

ldquoThis is nicer workrdquo he says He is not making more money but the job is more relaxing He can spend time with his son and his wife now works by his side With the extra income they have more money for the childrenrsquos schooling and can afford a few small luxuries like tea and snacks in the afternoon

In Karawang economic opportunism poverty lax import controls and limited environmental oversight are converging to create the conditions for a new plastic scrap industry Ade Junedi and the other plastic recyclers and waste pickers of Karawang may not see the hazards of the industry now but like Bangun and China before them itrsquos only a matter of time before taking in the worldrsquos trash loses its sheen

As workers makes tofu in a factory where they use cheap imported waste plastic to heat the boilers in the manufacturing process near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 22nd February 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 35

CHAPTER 7 FOLLOWING IN CHINArsquoS FOOTSTEPS Workers recycle domestic Indonesian plastic in factories near the Bantar Gabang waste dump thought to be the largest in the world in Bantar Gabang Indonesia on 23rd January 2019 The factories here used to recycle imported plastics too but in 2018 the imported plastics were banned here and recycled in Surabaya and Karawang

NEW DESTINATIONS BEGIN IMPOSING BANS

Malaysia which became the biggest plastic scrap importer in the first few months of 2018 instituted its first temporary ban in July 2018 Over the next several months the government found its footing as communities in Malaysia protested the same environmental and health effects that led China to ban plastic scrap

By October 2018 the Minister of Housing and Local Government Zuraida Kamaruddin announced a permanent ban on plastic waste within three years and stopped issuing new permits44 Enforcement operations accelerated closing down plastic recycling factoriesmdash many of which had partnered with the Chinese scrap business

ldquoI hate seeing my country as the dumpsite for the developed worldrdquo Yeo Bee Yin Malaysiarsquos environment minister posted on her Facebook page going on to lead an aggressive government push to crack down on illegal plastic recyclers and violators of Malaysiarsquos environmental laws

The shift in plastic waste imports spurred other countries in the region to enact bans and restrictions In July 2018 Vietnam45 said it would stop issuing new licenses for waste imports and crack down on illegal shipments of paper plastic and metal

As the environmental impacts deepened in Thailand grassroots organizations and environmental groups demanded that the government revoke an order allowing plastic recycling factories much of them processing hazardous e-waste to operate in agricultural areas The government responded with highly publicized raids of plastic recycling factories followed up by a strongly-worded announcement from the Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan that the government was moving toward a ban on e-waste46 By August 2018 Thailand47

announced that it will ban imports of 432 types of scrap electronics that will take effect within 6 months following it up with a plan to ban imports of plastic waste within two years

In October 2018 Taiwan countered the rise in plastic scrap imports with regulations sharply limiting the types of plastic scrap allowed into the country48

DISCARDED | PAGE 36

In March 2019 India followed suit announcing that it will ban scrap plastic imports ldquoIn order to strengthen the implementation of environmentally sound management of hazardous waste in the countryrdquo49

BEYOND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Following the bans and restrictions in Malaysia Thailand Taiwan Vietnam and India imports to those countries dropped according to research by Greenpeace East Asia67 However the patchwork nature of individual country bans means that plastic waste flows shifted to other countries including Indonesia and Turkey Furthermore after steep drops after the bans data in the last quarter of 2018 suggests that imports in Malaysia Thailand and Taiwan are beginning to tick up again Maintaining the bans in the absence of international regulation in the plastic waste trade requires vigilant enforcement

TIMELINE OF BANSRESTRICTIONS

July 2017 China sends notice to the World Trade Organization that it will crack down on plastic scrap imports50

January 2018 ldquoNational Swordrdquo takes efect China begins enforcing plastic scrap restrictions51

March 2018 China announces that it will impose a more rigorous contamination standard for imports of 005 down from 1552

April 2018 Thailand imposes a temporary ban on plastic scrap53

May 2018 Thailand lifs temporary ban on plastic scrap54

Malaysia temporarily stops issuing permits to import plastic scrap55

June 2018 Malaysia resumes issuing plastic scrap permits56

July 2018 Vietnam says it will stop issuing new licenses for waste imports and crack down on illegal shipments of paper plastic and metal57

July 2018 China announces58 that it will ban all imports of ldquosolid wasterdquo by the end of 201959

August 2018 Malaysia announces three-month freeze on issuing plastic waste permit60

Thailand announces an e-waste ban it will ban imports of 432 types of scrap electronics and will take efect within 6 months61

October 2018 Malaysia announces that it will take steps to limit the import of plastic waste and phase out imports of other types of plastic scrap (including ldquocleanrdquo plastic) within 3 years62

Thailand announces that it will permanently ban plastic imports by 202163

November 2018 Indonesian Industry Minister sends a leter to environment minister requesting that they lif the ban on importing plastic Indonesia currently has a blanket ban on importing waste but not defnitive rule on recyclable plastic as well as lax customs inspections so plastic waste enters with shipments marked as recycling or as mixed paper recycling64

March 2019 India announces that it will ban all plastic scrap imports65

April 2019 Vietnamese ofcials announce that they will bar all imports of plastic scrap by 202566

Workers recycle plastic in factories near the Bantar Gabang waste dump in Indonesia on 23 January 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 37

KWilkins
Sticky Note
Use for website

CHAPTER 8 TURNING CRISIS INTO OPPORTUNITY Members of the Rethink Plastic Alliance under the banner of the Break Free From Plastic movement urge European Union politicians to fght the plastic dragon by adopting strong single-use plastic legislation on 26 November 2018 Photo courtesy of the Rethink Plastic Alliance

Recognizing the significant systemic flaws in their recycling systems some plastic waste exporters are beginning to make incremental changes to both improve domestic recycling and phase out problematic products and packaging

In the US which is dependent on exporting high amounts of plastic waste recyclers are responding to the publicrsquos growing demand for plastic reduction In a San Francisco Chronicle opinion titled ldquoItrsquos time to cut use of plasticsrdquo the Chief Executive Officer of Recology a major US waste and recycling company called on the plastic industry and the state of California to reduce plastic use explaining that even before Chinarsquos actions ldquowe always struggled with what to do with many of the polymers that are being introduced into the waste streamrdquo68

Investment in domestic plastic recycling infrastructure is also expanding Waste Management the USrsquos largest recycling company invested $110 million on recycling infrastructure in 2018 and other companies have made similar investments in sophisticated sorting technology to cut down on contamination69 In addition to improving sorting infrastructure the industry has also seen investments in plastic recycling facilities that would

reduce the amount of plastic being sent overseas For example New Jersey-based company GDB International Inc was among many others exporting the plastics it collected to China but in the wake of Chinarsquos new policy the company has decided to build processing systems to recycle plastic domestically70

While improving domestic recycling infrastructure in exporting countries is a necessary step forward it has become abundantly clear that recycling alone will not be sufficient to absorb the ever-increasing amounts of single-use low-value plastic on the market Cities states and even entire countries are stepping up to enact policies that get to the heart of the problem the proliferation of plastic

The European Union has also taken bold steps to reduce waste in the region Just last month the European Parliament passed and rubber-stamped the Single-Use Plastic Directive which would place bans on some of the most problematic single-use plastics including plates cutlery and expanded polystyrene food containers and beverage cups The legislation also mandates that producers are financially responsible for the clean-up of certain wasteful products71

DISCARDED | PAGE 38

CHAPTER 8TURNING CRISIS INTO OPPORTUNITY

The urgency of the plastic pollution crisis has sparked a surge of proposed reduction legislation in cities across the US There are currently 14 states considering 27 comprehensive single-use plastic bans72 in places like Hawaii Vermont and Rhode Island 19 states are considering 65 plastic bag bans or fees73 20 states are considering 36 policies mandating straws upon request74 and 12 states are considering 35 pieces of legislation aimed at banning polystyrene75 Currently the state of California is considering the boldest form of plastic reduction legislation in the country to date a ldquoCircular Economyrdquo bill that would phase out single-use plastics by 203076

THE FUTURE OF ZERO WASTE ldquoREJECTING THROW-AWAY CULTURErdquo

On a soggy winter afternoon in January 2019 local school children teachers and zero waste advocates gathered at the steps of city hall in Berkeley California to call for their representatives to pass a historic piece of legislation that would be a giant step forward for reducing plastic waste in the city The Disposable Free

Dining ordinance mandates reusable foodware at restaurants for dining in cutting the use of disposable utensils plates and cups and slaps a 25 cent surcharge on disposable to-go containers which must be certified compostable

While some cities are wringing their hands helplessly in the face of Chinarsquos policy community advocates in the city of Berkeley saw the ban as an opportunity to take action to reduce single-use plastic Thanks to their efforts the Disposable Free Dining ordinance passed unanimously in the city council and implementation has already begun In a recent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times one of the ordinancersquos chief architects Martin Bourque of the Ecology Center and Annie Leonard Executive Director of Greenpeace USA wrote ldquoThe ordinance does not simply ban plastic foodware leaving businesses to replace it with other throwaway materials It rejects throwaway culture altogetherrdquo77

Bourque and others hope that this ordinance will be replicated in more and more places as communities around the world lift up their voices to demand a future where nothing and no one is disposable

City Council Member Sophie Hahn takes the podium next to Ecology Center Executive Director Martin Bourque at a press conference on the Berkeley Disposable Free Dining Ordinance on January 22 2019

DISCARDED | PAGE 39

RECOMMENDATIONS The plastic waste problem is complex dynamic and changing rapidly Many actors can take important steps to safeguard human health and the environment including the following actions

bull Governments should take collective action through the United Nations and binding international agreements to address the production export recycling and disposal of plastic One important element of this would be requiring plastic waste exporters to seek prior informed consent from countries receiving their exported waste This will significantly enhance recipient countriesrsquo ability to enforce their policies and legislation on the management of plastic waste Important upstream measures including a phase-out of problematic single-use plastic products and packaging an end to exports of plastic waste to lower-income countries and the global implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility78 have also been proposed Negotiations on some of these measures under the Basel Convention and the United Nations Environment Assembly are ongoing and need support from national governments industry and civil society alike

bull Developing countries should impose bans on importing plastic waste to prevent the dumping of waste from high-income countries on poor and under-resourced communities To be effective legislation on bans needs to be accompanied by robust adequately resourced monitoring and enforcement measures

bull The private sector having created the plastic problem is in the best position to quickly address it Redesigning products packaging and delivery systems to eliminate the use of single-use plastic products and packaging is the ultimate solution to plastic pollution Companies must reduce both production and post-consumer waste and take financial responsibility for managing post-consumer waste that cannot be avoided including existing plastic waste

bull Local and national governments must prioritize source reduction through bans on problematic plastic products and packaging and by mandating Extended Producer Responsibility Banning toxic additives that undermine safe recycling and requiring the increased use of post-consumer plastic in recycling can help facilitate the collection and recycling of existing plastic However because plastic recycling does not happen in a closed loop and plastic is rapidly downcycled to zero utility these are primarily interim measures

bull Governments should make rights for waste pickers and recycling workers central to system reform The economic incentives to accept plastic waste are a pervasive force that speaks to a larger failure to address poverty and ensure decent livelihoods for everyone No one should have to endanger their health or environment for the ability to earn a living Waste management reforms must incorporate worker leadership throughout the planning and implementation process79

bull Governments must prohibit the burning of plastic whether in the open in waste incinerators in cement kilns in plastic-to-fuel operations in makeshift furnaces as fuel or in landfill fires Shutting off the plastic waste trade by itself is insufficient if poor and marginalized communities continue to host polluting disposal technologies

bull Exporting countries must take responsibility for their plastic reduction and recycling domestically Investment in domestic recycling infrastructure should achieve high environmental and social outcomes and prevent further exports However plastic recycling should not be used as justification for further single-use plastic production but as a pathway towards zero waste

DISCARDED | PAGE 40

KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Highlight
KWilkins
Highlight

END NOTES 1

as global scrap piles up (2018 October 25) Reuters Retrieved from htpswwwreuterscomarticle us-malaysia-waste-idUSKCN1MZ0P4

2 Reed J Faunce L Hook L amp Blood D (2018 October 25) Why the worldrsquos recycling system stopped working Retrieved from Financial Times website htpswwwfcom content360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8

3 Geyer R Jambeck J R amp Law K L (2017) Production use and fate of all plastics ever made Science Advances 3(7) e1700782 htpsdoi org101126sciadv1700782

4 GTBTNCHN1211 (nd) Retrieved from htpsdocswtoorgdol2fePagesFE_Search FE_S_S009-DP

5 Margolis J (2018 January 1) Mountains of US recycling pile up as China restricts imports Retrieved from Public Radio International website htpswwwpriorgstories2018-01-01 mountains-us-recycling-pile-china-restricts-imports

6 Staub C (2019 January 29) China Plastic imports down 99 percent paper down a third Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20190129china-plastic-imports-down-99-percent-paper-down-a-third

7 Greenpeaceorg (2019) Data from the global plastics waste trade 2016-2018 and the ofshore impact of Chinarsquos foreign waste import ban [online] Available at htpwwwgreenpeaceorgeastasiaGlobal eastasiapublicationscampaignstoxicsGPEA20 Plastic20waste20trade20-20research20 briefng-v1pdf [Accessed 22 Apr 2019]

8 Albeck-Ripka L (2018 May 29) 6 Things Yoursquore Recycling Wrong - The New York Times Retrieved from htpswwwnytimescom20180529climate recycling-wrong-mistakeshtml

9 Recycling Plastic Complications amp Limitations htpsitesftnycedudeptssustainabilityatft Recycling_Plastic_Copdf

10 Sedaghat L (2018 April 4) 7 Things You Didnrsquot Know About Plastic (and Recycling) Retrieved from National Geographic Society Newsroom website htpsblognationalgeographicorg201804047-things-you-didnt-know-about-plastic-and-recycling

11 Improving Plastics Management Trends policy responses and the role of international co-operation and trade htpwwwoecdorg environmentwastepolicy-highlights-improving-plastics-managementpdf

Swamped with plastic waste Malaysia struggles

Retrieved from htpswwwtheguardian comsustainable-business2016jun30

DISCARDED | PAGE 41

12 htpwwwplasticseuropeorgdocumentsdocument20161014113313-plastics_the_ facts_2016_fnal_versionpdf

13 The carbon budget refers to the amount of greenhouse gases admissible to emit in order to maintain the global temperature increase up to 2degC by 2100 Source World Economic Forum Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey amp Company 2016 The New Plastics Economy mdash Rethinking the future of plastics

14 Center for International Environmental Law 2017 How Fracked Gas Cheap Oil and Unburnable Coal are Driving the Plastics Boom

15 Johnson J (2016 February 10) Global oversupply of PET piles the pressure on recycled PET Retrieved from Plastics News website htps wwwplasticsnewscomarticle20160210 PRW160209775

16 Multi-Material Flexible Packaging Recovery (nd) Retrieved from htps sustainablepackagingorgcommitees multi-material-fexible-packaging-recovery

17 The Brand Audit Report Launch (2018 October 3) Retrieved from Break Free From Plastic website htpswwwbreakfreefromplasticorg globalbrandauditreport2018

18 How recycling is changing in all 50 states (2019 April 3) Retrieved from Waste Dive website htpswwwwastedivecomnewswhat-chinese-import-policies-mean-for-all-50-states510751

19 Milman O (2019 February 21) ldquoMoment of reckoningrdquo US cities burn recyclables afer China bans imports The Guardian Retrieved from htpswwwtheguardiancomcities2019feb21 philadelphia-covanta-incinerator-recyclables-china-ban-imports

20 Recyclables Dumped in Oregon Landflls Since China Ban (2018 August 6) Retrieved from Waste360 website htpswww statesmanjournalcomstorytechscience environment2018080623-million-pounds-recyclables-dumped-oregon-landflls-year898971002

21 Albeck-Ripka L (2018 May 29) Your Recycling Gets Recycled Right Maybe or Maybe Not - The New York Times Retrieved from htpswww nytimescom20180529climaterecycling-landflls-plastic-papershtml

22 Site visit by Mageswari Sangaralingam December 2017

23 Subramanian S (2016 June 30) Plastic roads Indiarsquos radical plan to bury its garbage beneath the streets The Guardian

END NOTES plastic-road-india-tar-plastic-transport-environment-pollution-waste

24 Thiagarajan K (2018 July 9) The man who paves Indiarsquos roads with old plastic The Guardian Retrieved from htps wwwtheguardiancomworld2018jul09 the-man-who-paves-indias-roads-with-old-plastic

25 Suriyani L D (2017 August 10) Plastic Fantastic Indonesia plans to turn waste into road tar Retrieved from Mongabay Environmental News website htpsnewsmongabaycom201708 plastic-fantastic-indonesia-plans-to-turn-waste-into-road-tar

26 Bendix A (2019 March 6) Dow Chemical building streets with recycled plastic to reduce liter - Business Insider Retrieved from htpswwwbusinessinsidercom dow-chemical-recycled-plastic-streets-2019-2

27 Plastic Waste Helps Build Homes in the Philippines (nd) Retrieved from Marine Liter Solutions website htpswww marinelitersolutionscomprojects philippines-greenantz-plastic-waste-bricks

28 Braw E (2014 November 3) 8 ways to rethink resources nappies to benches and food waste to biogas The Guardian Retrieved from htpswwwtheguardiancomsustainable-business2014nov038-ways-rethink-resources-nappies-benches-food-waste-biogas

29 A Review of Technology of Metal Recovery from Electronic Waste htpswwwintechopencom bookse-waste-in-transition-from-pollution-to-resourcea-review-of-technology-of-metal-recovery-from-electronic-waste Menad N Bjorkman B Allain E G Combustion of plastics contained in electric and electronic scrap Resources Conservation and Recycling 1998 24 65ndash85 DOI 101016S0921-3449(98)00040-8 Gullet BK et al Characterization of air emissions and residual ash from open burning of electronic wastes during simulated rudimentary recycling operations

30 WHO | Electronic waste (nd) Retrieved April 9 2019 from WHO website htpwwwwhoint cehrisksewasteen

31 Brominated Flame Retardants Rising Levels of Concern htpsnoharmorgsitesdefaultfles libdownloadsbfrsBFRs_Rising_Concernpdf

32 Verma R Vinoda K S Papireddy M amp Gowda A N S (2016) Toxic Pollutants from Plastic Waste- A Review Procedia Environmental Sciences 35 701ndash708 htpsdoiorg101016jproenv201607069

33 Zhang M Buekens A amp Li X (2017) Open burning as a source of dioxins Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology 47(8) 543ndash620 htpsdoiorg10108010643389201713201 54

34 Nakao T Aozasa O Ohta S amp Miyata H (2006) Formation of toxic chemicals including dioxin-related compounds by combustion from a small home waste incinerator Chemosphere 62(3) 459ndash468 htpsdoiorg101016j chemosphere200504060

35 Dioxins and their efects on human health (nd) Retrieved April 9 2019 from htps wwwwhointnews-roomfact-sheetsdetail dioxins-and-their-efects-on-human-health

36 Estrellan C R amp Iino F (2010) Toxic emissions from open burning Chemosphere 80(3) 193ndash207 htpsdoiorg101016jchemosphere201003057

37 Azizi N A (2019 February 25) War on illegal plastic waste intensifes Retrieved from NST Online website htpswww nstcommynewsnation201902463544 war-illegal-plastic-waste-intensifes

38 Malaysiarsquos illegal dumping sites pose a big challenge (2019 March 21) Retrieved from The Straits Times website htpswwwstraitstimes comasiase-asiamalaysias-illegal-dumping-sites-pose-a-big-challenge

39 Hodal K (2013 February 27) Murder of environmentalist ldquohighlights Thailandrsquos failure to protect activistsrdquo The Guardian Retrieved from htpswwwtheguardiancomworld2013feb27 murder-environmentalist-thailand-failure

40 Plastic amp Health The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet htpswwwcielorgwp-content uploads201902Plastic-and-Health-The-Hidden-Costs-of-a-Plastic-Planet-February-2019pdf

41 Minter Adam Junkyard Planet Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade 2013

42 Minter A (2014 July 16) Plastic poverty and pollution in Chinarsquos recycling dead zone The Guardian Retrieved from htpswww theguardiancomlifeandstyle2014jul16 plastic-poverty-pollution-china-recycling-dead-zone

43 htpsswachcoopcom 44 Malaysia to curb imports of plastic waste -

minister (2018 October 26) Reuters Retrieved from htpswwwreuterscomarticle us-malaysia-waste-imports-idUSKCN1N028P

45 Ananthalakshmi A (2018 October 26) Malaysia to curb imports of plastic waste - minister (A Roche Ed) Retrieved from htpswwwreuters comarticleus-malaysia-waste-importsmalaysia-to-curb-imports-of-plastic-waste-minister-idUSKCN1N028P

DISCARDED | PAGE 42

KWilkins
Sticky Note

46 Vejpongsa T amp Kaewjinda K (2018 June 21) Thailand preparing total ban on import of electronic waste Retrieved from AP NEWS website htpsapnews com6aec11651485421291450da7b55efa96

47 Thepgumpanat P (2018 August 16) Thailand to ban imports of high-tech trash plastic waste Reuters Retrieved from htpswwwreuterscomarticle us-thailand-environment-waste-idUSKBN1L10QW

48 Staub C (2018 November 27) Taiwan joins countries curbing scrap imports Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20181127 taiwan-joins-countries-curbing-scrap-imports

49 Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (2019 March 1) Amendment in Hazardous Waste (Management amp Transboundary Movement) Rules 2016 Posted on March 6 2019 on the Press Information Bureau of India Retrieved from htppibnicinPressReleaseDetail aspxPRID=1567682

50 From Green Fence to red alert A China timeline (2018 February 13) Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20180213 green-fence-red-alert-china-timeline


52 Pyzyk K (2018 April 4) With Chinarsquos ldquonearly impossiblerdquo contamination standard where are MRFs looking now Retrieved from Waste Dive website htpswwwwastedivecomnews china-contamination-standard-MRFs519659

53 Pyzyk K (2018 August 17) Thailand to permanently ban plastic imports by 2021 Retrieved from Waste Dive website htpswww wastedivecomnewsthailand-permanent-ban-plastic-e-scrap-imports530277

54 Pyzyk K (2018 June 26) Thailand temporarily stops plastic e-scrap imports Retrieved from Waste Dive website htpswwwwastedivecom newsthailand-temporarily-stops-plastic-e-scrap-imports526565


56 Staub C (2018 October 16) Malaysia to enact scrap import tax and restrictions Retrieved

from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20181016 malaysia-to-enact-scrap-import-tax-and-restrictions

57 Vu K Sipalan J amp Stanway D (2018 July 26) Vietnam to limit waste imports as shipments build up at ports Reuters Retrieved from htpswwwreuterscomarticle us-vietnam-waste-idUSKBN1KG0KL

58 Staub C (2018 July 18) China moves to extend ban to all materials Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20180718 china-moves-to-extend-ban-to-all-materials

59 Staub C (2019 April 9) China reiterates total ban and tries to defne ldquosolid wasterdquo Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20190409 china-reiterates-total-ban-and-tries-to-defne-solid-waste





64 Suroyo G amp Silviana C (2018 December 21) In Indonesia splits emerge over eforts to stem plastic tide Reuters Retrieved from htpswww reuterscomarticleus-indonesia-environment-zero-waste-idUSKCN1OK0H3

65 Staub C (2019 March 6) India to end plastic scrap imports Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htpsresource-recyclingcomrecycling20190306 india-to-end-plastic-scrap-imports

66 Staub C (2019 April 2) Ofcials say Vietnam to end plastic imports in 2025 Retrieved from Resource Recycling News website htps resource-recyclingcomrecycling20190402

DISCARDED | PAGE 43

from htpswwwlatimescomopinionop-ed la-oe-leonard-bourque-plastic-berkeley-20190127-storyhtml

78 For Extended Producer Responsibility to drive real change it must prioritize upstream provisions for product redesign These include transparent and public reporting of feedstocks used and impacts waste prevention at source through alternative delivery systems or materials substitution requirements for longevity reusability repairability recyclability and non-toxicity and reuse targets among others For a real incentive to change EPR schemes should distinguish individual producers penalizing those who resist change and acknowledging those who redesign to reduce waste In all cases producers should cover the costs but the public should have ultimate oversight of collection and treatment systems

79 Economic development plans should focus on building strong local economies with more opportunities for local sustainable dignifed and safer jobs in collection recovery composting recycling and repurpose These programs should allow worker leadership in recycling system transitions waste pickers and informal recyclers must have the power to improve materials management and to be integrated in the change to new systems and business models (eg specifc material bans or establishing new delivery systems as alternatives to plastic packaging) with training for new roles Waste pickers and waste workers must also be given the opportunity to represent themselves in local and national policy spaces to advocate for themselves

END NOTES ofcials-say-vietnam-to-end-plastic-imports-in-2025

67 Greenpeaceorg (2019) Data from the global plastics waste trade 2016-2018 and the ofshore impact of Chinarsquos foreign waste import ban [online] Available at htpwwwgreenpeaceorg eastasiaGlobaleastasiapublicationscampaigns toxicsGPEA20Plastic20waste20trade20 -20research20briefng-v1pdf [Accessed 22 Apr 2019]

68 Sangiacomo M J (2018 December 24) It is time to cut use of plastics - SFChroniclecom Retrieved from htpswwwsfchroniclecomopinion openforumarticleIt-is-time-to-cut-use-of-plastics-13489726php

69 Staub C (2019 March 26) Investments contradict ldquoend of recyclingrdquo headlines Retrieved April 11 2019 from Resource Recycling News website htpsresource-recyclingcom recycling20190326investments-contradict-end-of-recycling-headlines

70 Johnson J (2019 March 14) Recyclers invest in US processing in wake of National Sword Retrieved from Plastics News website htps wwwplasticsnewscomarticle20190314 NEWS190312228

71 EU agrees unprecedented cuts to single-use plastics (2018 December 19) Retrieved from Rethink Plastic website htps rethinkplasticallianceeunewseu-agrees-unprecedented-cuts-to-single-use-plastics

72 Quorum | Sofware Built for Public Afairs (2019) Retrieved from htpswwwquorumus spreadsheetpubliciGczRqpcuUEzrxMmlhkD

73 Quorum | Sofware Built for Public Afairs (2019) Retrieved from htpswwwquorumus spreadsheetpublicpaeGXbphGLyigmFBNshU

74 Quorum | Sofware Built for Public Afairs (2019) Retrieved from htpswwwquorumus spreadsheetpublicVZypVNnYDXbyhjdhJKBS

75 Quorum | Sofware Built for Public Afairs (2019) Retrieved from htpswwwquorumus spreadsheetpublicBeuEEyxoSVCuHivxkbyW

76 Daniels J (2019) California proposes phaseout of single-use plastics by 2030 [online] CNBC Available at htpswwwcnbccom20190223 california-proposes-phaseout-of-single-use-plastics-by-2030html

77 Leonard A amp Bourque M (2019 January 27) Berkeley isnrsquot just atacking plastic waste itrsquos rejecting our entire throwaway culture Retrieved

DISCARDED | PAGE 44

DISCARDED Communities on the Frontlines of the Global Plastic Crisis

copy2019 Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives 1958 University Avenue Berkeley CA 94704

GAIA is a global network of more than 800 grassroots groups NGOs and individuals We envision a just Zero Waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution and resources are sustainably conserved not burned or dumped We work to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

GAIA is grateful for the help and support of GAIA members and partners around the world who actively contributed their time and expertise to this report We would especially like to thank the Break Free From Plastic Movement Balifokus

Nexus3 Consumers Association of Penang the Ecology Center Ecoton Friends of the Earth Malaysia Greenpeace and the Story of Stuff Project

We would like to especially thank Greenpeace East Asia for its data analysis of the top importers and exporters shown in the report and Sarah Fitzgerald for data visualization

This report has been made possible in part through funding from the Plastic Solutions Fund (PSF) The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect that of PSF and its funders

This report or its parts may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes provided the source is fully acknowledged Reproduction for sale or commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder

All photographs are courtesy of Adam Dean unless otherwise noted Report design is courtesy of Laimah Osman

DISCARDED | PAGE 45

CONTENTS 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Key Findings

6 CHAPTER 1 THE FLOOD

9 CHAPTER 2 CHINA SAYS NO TO ldquoFOREIGN GARBAGErdquo

11 CHAPTER 3 RECYCLING IS NOT ENOUGH Existential Problems Within the Recycling Industry

rarr The Curse of ldquoAspirational Recyclingrdquo rarr Recycling vs Garbage rarr Drowning in Plastic rarr The Fallout

14 CHAPTER 4 MALAYSIA

rarr Plastic Scrap Floods Malaysia ldquoYou Ask People to Die While You Go to Heaven and We Go to Hellrdquo

rarr Grassroots Action ldquoWe Had to Do It Ourselvesrdquo rarr Enforcement ldquoA Heavy Burdenrdquo rarr Intentions and Challenges rarr Malaysia Takes Action

22 CHAPTER 5 THAILAND rarr ldquoItrsquos Toxic Trash and We are Living Hererdquo

26 CHAPTER 6 INDONESIA

rarr Treasure in the Trash rarr Confict in the Village rarr ldquoPlease Tell the United Nationsrdquo rarr A Cautionary Tale ldquoI Just Couldnrsquot Take it Any Morerdquo rarr Why Indonesia May Become the Next China rarr The Recycling King of Bangun rarr End of the Line Plastic Fuel rarr Karawang Danger of the Unregulated Industry

Spreading

36 CHAPTER 7 FOLLOWING IN CHINArsquoS FOOTSTEPS rarr New Destinations Begin Imposing Bans rarr Beyond Southeast Asia

38 CHAPTER 8 TURNING CRISIS INTO OPPORTUNITY rarr The Future of Zero Waste ldquoRejecting Throwaway

Culturerdquo

40 RECOMMENDATIONS

41 END NOTES

45 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ON THE COVER Villagers pick through plastic waste that was found contaminating imported paper for recycling Sumengko Village near Gresik Surabaya Indonesia on 21st February 2019 Photo Credit Adam Dean

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CHAPTER 1THE FLOOD













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USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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DROWNING IN PLASTIC







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CHAPTER 5THAILAND










Chachoengsao

Laem Chabang

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CHAPTER 6INDONESIA












Sumengko

Gresik and Surabaya

Karawang

Bangun

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He is still waiting








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C= O









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CHAPTER 1THE FLOOD













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USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

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˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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OUGLEMS









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DROWNING IN PLASTIC







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Chachoengsao

Laem Chabang

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CHAPTER 6INDONESIA












Sumengko

Gresik and Surabaya

Karawang

Bangun

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He is still waiting








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C= O









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CHAPTER 1THE FLOOD













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UK


USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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CHAPTER 5THAILAND










Chachoengsao

Laem Chabang

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CHAPTER 6INDONESIA












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Gresik and Surabaya

Karawang

Bangun

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He is still waiting








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CHAPTER 1THE FLOOD













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UK


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Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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L E PR

NOB

OUGLEMS









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Laem Chabang

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Gresik and Surabaya

Karawang

Bangun

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Malaysia Indonesia


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˝ˆ 448352 tons










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˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

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˝ˆ 448352 tons










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USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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CHAPTER 6INDONESIA












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Karawang

Bangun

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C= O









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UK


USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










DISCARDED | PAGE 10


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OIAT

L E PR

NOB

OUGLEMS









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DROWNING IN PLASTIC







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CHAPTER 6INDONESIA












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UK


USA Taiwan

Hong Kong

Malaysia Indonesia


˝ ˘ˇˆ 443615 tons 13˘deg˘ 398261 tons

˜ 353637 tons

˜ 961563 tons ˇˇ˘ 891719 tons

˛˝˙ˆˇ˘ 733756 tons ˜deg 548256 tons

˝ˆ 448352 tons










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